The country's dependencies, island territories in the Caribbean Sea, all lie in the same time zone: Atlantic Standard Time (AST), which is 4 hours behind Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Please see below for a list of the Netherlands' dependencies.

Time Zone History of the Netherlands

The Netherlands standardized its civil time in 1909. Until then, each location in the country had observed its own solar time. In 1909, all clocks in the Netherlands were synchronized with solar time in Amsterdam. Amsterdam Time or Dutch Time, as it was commonly called, was 19 minutes and 32 seconds ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which was then the world's time standard. In 1937, the country's standard time was adjusted by 28 seconds to GMT+0:20 for simplicity's sake.

In 1940, German forces occupying the Netherlands during World War II advanced the country's local time by 1 hour and 40 minutes, effectively changing its time zone to Central European Summer Time (CEST), Germany's Daylight Saving Time (DST). The Netherlands remained on year-round DST until 1942. From 1942 to 1945, Dutch clocks followed Germany's schedule of DST switches.

In 1945, after the end of World War II, the country abandoned DST for over 3 decades. However, the time zone imposed by the German occupiers remains the country's standard time to the present day.